


Last Known Address

by sunnywithclouds



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Battle of Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Draco Malfoy in Denial, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Gryffindor, HP - Freeform, Harry Potter - Freeform, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts, M/M, Muggle Draco Malfoy, Non-Canon Relationship, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Slytherin, Wizarding World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25372798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnywithclouds/pseuds/sunnywithclouds
Summary: Draco Malfoy has left the Wizarding world behind.  He felt he needed to.  He felt it was the only thing he COULD do.He suspected he wouldn't be sentenced to Azkaban for his crimes, even though he felt he should be.  He didn't know how to atone for what he'd done, for the guilt he felt, for the pain he'd caused.  So he banished himself.He knows, perhaps, that was a little cowardly, but it was all he could do.  And no one would really think much about him or remember him once some time had passed.Harry remembers, though.  Harry has never forgotten...  And he wants to find him.------------------------
Relationships: (More To Come), Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 65





	1. The Story So Far

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back from the (seeming) dead!
> 
> This is a re-vamp of 'Fade Away', so if you read that (it's been removed now) parts of this will be from that but I wanted to change some things about where that plot was going so it was necessary to start again and rework it. :)
> 
> Thanks for stopping by!
> 
> \------------------------

Have you ever seen that episode of Supernatural where Zachariah makes Dean an executive and Sam a call centre employee? Where they don't know each other but are working at the same company, leading completely different lives, but Sam somehow knows something isn't right?

Draco has seen it. It's an episode he hated (and he's seen them all to date) because it sort of reminded him of his own life.

Not the supernatural butt-kicking part of it, which is the conclusion anyone would jump to. The part of being removed FROM the supernatural world and being inserted into the mundane.

Draco was thinking about that episode again as he walked through the doors of the towering office building one weekday morning. He kept thinking about it as he stepped into the elevator, glancing behind himself politely before he moved back towards the people who had got in first. 

He sighed a low breath as he watched the numbers climb on the lit panel above his head, moving out of the way as people got off on the lower floors, leaving him alone to travel the last few before he got out at the top.

Executive he was, much like Dean had been. Wearing such tailored suits, talking absolute drivel with his co-workers, caring about things that he never thought he'd care about.

But all the while he smiled, made small talk, discussed television shows and went to meetings, he always felt like an absolute fake. At least Dean hadn't known he was an absolute fake the whole time. Life would have been easier that way.

Draco now lived in the Muggle world. Something he never thought he would ever ever have to even consider. But at the end of the war it honestly seemed like the only thing he COULD do.

He hadn't wanted to stick around. The world he knew, though free, was bleak looking ahead for him. He knew that trials would happen. He knew that his father for sure and likely his mother would be sent to Azkaban. There was a small chance he might be as well, though he had a higher suspicion he wouldn't be. And if he wasn't sent to Azkaban he wasn't going to stand trial. He knew that seemed backwards, but it was the truth.

The last thing he wanted, the very last thing in the world he wanted, was to have others in the Wizarding community looking on him with sympathy. With pity. 

The poor Malfoy child who got dragged into everything with no choice. Made into a Death Eater against his will, forced to carry out unspeakable tasks or face death if he said no.

It was true, he knew it was true. All of that was what happened. But he didn't want sympathy, he didn't want understanding. He felt he should pay for the things he had done, but he didn't think the chances were high that anyone would follow through with it. And without something official to tell him how to do it, he didn't have any idea how to pay that debt.

So instead, he left. At least if he left it was kind of like he was being ousted from the community and forced to go off alone. It was sort of a repayment... And it turned out to be quite easy to do, actually. His parents were so preoccupied and utterly out of their heads they didn't even notice him walking around the Manor with a sack, putting into it anything that was valuable and not magickal. Candlesticks, flatware, jewellery, gem stones, trinkets of gold and silver... 

It wasn't stealing when he made no secret of it and when his parents would be in jail and all this would default to him anyways. And he would need the money he could get for pawning these items in the Muggle world. Starting over somewhere he knew nothing about would be a lot easier if he had copious amounts of cash to throw at any problems he faced.

That, at least, he knew he could do. Finding a place to live, a job, clothing, dealing with Muggles in general... He didn't know if he could figure that all out easily, but throwing money at things to make them go away or become easier was a skill he had in spades.

He left the day his parents stood trial. He waited, loitering in Diagon Alley with his sack full of treasure and suitcase full of the most normal items he owned, until the whispers started and he heard for certain that both of his parents were sentenced to life in Azkaban.

And then he picked up the sack and the suitcase and walked back to the Leaky Cauldron. He stepped through the dim interior, not looking around, and not glancing back once before he walked out the door onto the Muggle street, turned right, and started his new life.

He wanted to be utterly forgotten, and for the most part he was. 

For awhile after his parents trial, people did talk about him. They wondered what had become of him. No one knew for sure, and somewhere along the line it started circulating that he had actually died in the war. He had been reported alive but no one had seen him for certain after that night so perhaps he had actually perished.

Aside from the day he left when he'd been in Diagon Alley, he hadn't ventured into public at all. And his presence that day was watery in the memories of those who had seen him. Muddled together with a dozen other things that they'd seen and heard that day, he could have easily been just some other blonde boy.

His school mates all said they'd seen him during the battle, some even said they could have sworn they saw him alive at the end of it. But when there was nary a trace of him turned up they started wondering if perhaps they hadn't seen him. It had been the most hectic and stressful of nights. It had been a BATTLE, after all. They couldn't count on their memories being entirely clear.

There was, however, one person that knew Draco had to be alive. He didn't know where he was, didn't know what had happened to him, but he KNEW Draco had been alive at the end of the war and he never second guessed that knowledge. It angered him beyond belief that Draco's disappearance was just passed off. That he faded from people's minds and memories without a second thought. That no one seemed to CARE that he was just gone.

When Draco's disappearance filtered to Harry, he caused more than one scene over it. In Diagon Alley, at the Ministry, in front of his best friends... 

“DRACO won the war! If it hadn't been for him... If he hadn't done what he did... It was him! HE WON IT ALL! How can you not understand how important it is to find him!?” He had shouted this and much much more directly at the Minister for Magic. Kingsley was in the middle of a meeting when Harry had burst into the room. Wild eyed and absolutely on a tear, utterly oblivious to anyone else in the room he had raved at him about Draco for ten minutes before he finally had to have people remove him from the room.

Ron and Hermione had been the ones to come and retrieve him. The guards that had forcibly removed him from the meeting room wouldn't let him leave alone.

“I'm fine.” Harry said, raking a hand through his hair as Ron and Hermione cast him worried looks.

“Harry..” Hermione said tentatively, placing a hand on his arm. “We think you need a break. You need to go somewhere and rest. Properly rest.”

“I'm not crazy.” Harry said, suddenly afraid of what he must have looked like to those around him lately.

“No one thinks you're crazy, mate.” Ron said, though he did actually think Harry might be a little unstable. “But you've been through hell in life, yeah? You deserve a break.”

Harry 'took a break'. To all who paid attention he withdrew from the world a fair bit and all breathed a sigh of relief that he did.

But he only did it to stop everyone from thinking he was mad. Nothing would change his mind about the importance of finding Draco. But if he was going to do it, he had to make sure everyone had forgotten he ever cared about it in the first place.

\-----------------------------------------

_  
**FIVE YEARS LATER**   
_

"Did you hear the news?" Ron asked, thumping himself down into a chair at the table across from Harry.

"Which news? There's always news." Harry smiled at Ron, then up at Hermione as she leaned over his shoulder to set a plate and cutlery in front of him.

He was having dinner at Ron and Hermione's place, something he did only occasionally, though they invited him often.

"About Malfoy Manor." Ron said, then beamed at his wife, pulling her down so he could kiss her cheek, having just come in from work to join her and Harry.

"No...?" Harry shook his head, his brows knitting slightly as he tried to recall anything he might have heard. But nothing came to him. It had actually been years since anyone had even said the name 'Malfoy' to him, even if he did think the name daily. This pricked his senses. If Ron and Hermione were talking to him about this, maybe now, finally, they had utterly forgotten his 'madness' right after the war.

"They're putting it up for auction. Contents and everything." Ron was uncorking a bottle of firewhiskey, pouring a measure into his glass then leaning over towards Harry to do the same. "It's been empty for five years, though it looks like it's been left for five hundred. Already so overgrown and looks unkempt."

"People have been vandalizing it." Hermione said, directing with her wand after she sat down with the two men, making bowls of food sail over to the table for them to help themselves. "Throwing things at it and magically vandalizing it as well, so it looks terrible and like it's been abandoned for centuries."

"I suppose Draco never did surface then." Harry spoke casually, serving himself chicken and some potatoes. 

He kept his tone light and careful, not wanting to arouse even the slightest bit of suspicion that he'd been literally waiting years to have any sort of conversation like this.

"Funny thing. He goes missing, everyone assumes he's with family or dead or what have you, but maybe he isn't." Ron spoke with a mouthful of food and smiled when Hermione swatted the back of his head.

"If Draco was with family I'm sure they would have taken care of Malfoy Manor." Hermione spoke crisply as always, wiping her mouth carefully on her napkin before she continued. "But everything is falling apart and no one can get inside. The house still protects itself from intruders."

"Doubt anyone will buy it if they can't get inside." Ron scratched the back of his head where he'd been swatted, leaning back in his chair. "And who'd want it unless they were going to tear it down. And who'd spend money just _to_ tear it down. No one wants to be the one to own the last place Voldemort called his Headquarters."

Harry stayed quiet for a few moments, listening to the clink of his friend's silverware against the plates as he thought. Then, as casually as he could, he raised his head to look at Hermione. "Maybe I'll buy it."

"What??" Ron dropped his fork and knife with a clatter, leaning forward a bit. "Why would you WANT it?"

"I don't know that I want it." Harry said honestly, he wasn't sure if he wanted it at all. "But regardless of what memories or feelings people have of it, it's a piece of history. Bad things might have happened there but it seems wrong to just have it auctioned off to the highest bidder. It should be at least sort of maintained. Who knows if it might be needed in the future?"

Harry held his breath, poking at his meal as though he was still eating and this was the most off hand conversation he'd ever had. Not important. It was of no consequence one way or the other if he actually bought Malfoy Manor... 

Ron bought it, Harry could tell as his friend nodded, a deep line between his eyebrows, signalling a deep thought process. But Hermione... Hermione had that careful and probing look on her face that made it clear she was also thinking. And far more clearly than Ron was.

"S'pose you have a point." Ron said, picking up his fork again. "And if anyone else bought it I bet people would whisper that they were bad and up to no good. Just how people are. But if you bought it and said it was to preserve history everyone would nod and understand and likely think you're even better of a bloke than they already do."

"Yes, Harry, that sounds like a good idea." Hermione said, her tone measured as she watched every single shift of expression and thought behind Harry's eyes. "In fact, if you're serious I could always put forward your intent to purchase and see if perhaps you can avoid public auction. We haven't even been that convinced it _would_ sell at auction, this was just our best idea of what to do with it. An offer of private sale would probably be taken very seriously."

"Fine, fine..." Harry smiled, waving his hand a bit towards Hermione. "You can talk me through it all after dinner and tell me what you think an appropriate offer would be."

"Careful mate." Ron said with a grin and a wink towards Hermione. "She'll tell you top dollar just so her Ministry Department gets extra funding."

"Ron!!" Hermione threw her napkin at her husband, acting terribly offended even though both of them, and Harry a few moments later, were all laughing.

It all took about three weeks from that night for Harry to get everything together he needed and for his offer towards Malfoy Manor to be approved. A week after that, he had deed and key in hand and was, on paper, the rightful owner of Malfoy Manor.

The deed went into his vault at Gringott's. The key he pocketed and carried around for several more weeks before he did anything with it.

He'd wanted to take it and go straight to Malfoy Manor as soon as the sale was complete, but he was all too aware of that maybe looking a little too strange. Too eager. And he had to be careful about how he approached this purchase.

Ron had been right, for the most part. Him buying Malfoy Manor was a piece of information that spread like wildfire in the Wizarding Community. But it was largely seen as a positive thing. He was praised for doing such a noble and humble thing towards preserving the history, and praised for being so brave to purchase a place that likely had terrible memories for him.

The Prophet even wrote an article about it, quoting Harry as saying he intended to restore and preserve the Manor and its contents so that it could perhaps be used as a museum in the future, for generations who would know nothing of the War but the stories in history books.

Harry might do those things, he honestly didn't know. The real reason, and the ONLY true reason he had bought Malfoy Manor was to try and find out what happened to Draco.

He had no idea if there would be anything in the house or grounds that would lead him to what happened, or where Draco was now. But as soon as Ron and Hermione had told him Malfoy Manor was going to be sold, he knew he wanted it. Didn't even have to think about it, he wanted it. He wanted everything inside. He wanted to rifle through everything, find all the secret hiding places, search the grounds, and maybe, just maybe, turn up a lead somewhere.

He'd felt absolutely agonizing guilt for having let five years pass without doing anything. Five years he could have been looking for Draco. But he'd had to step back. He'd had to take that break and once he'd actually started to rest, he'd realized just how badly he did need it.

He went first to Grimmauld Place, having no idea where else to go. He stayed there for months, leaving only to go into the Muggle world for food and supplies. He stopped answering Owls, stopped allowing any visitors, even his friends. And eventually, everyone started leaving him alone.

After awhile, he found he could breathe again. Found he could sleep again. Found that the world didn't seem dream like and surreal anymore. 

He'd never meant to stay at Grimmauld Place, but after the first year he realized that as the legal owner of the home he could actually move things around. The portraits weren't up with a permanent sticking charm after all and he'd spent several weeks taking them all down and stacking them in the basement. With their presence removed the house suddenly felt different... And for the next six months after that he worked hard, erasing every last trace of the Black's from the house and doing it over for himself.

The only room he didn't touch was Sirius'. He knew that Sirius would have had no problem with him making it over like the rest of the house but Harry couldn't bring himself to erase the last bits of his worldly presence. 

Now, though... Now Harry had access to Malfoy Manor. The last place he suspected Draco had been. He had, Harry figured, at the very least returned there for a few days, and if there was any possibility that Harry could trace those last days and find him, he would.

The evening Harry decided to go to Malfoy Manor for the first time to look around, Draco was sitting in his flat in London. 

He'd gotten home from work about an hour earlier and had found something to eat before settling on the couch to turn on the television. Just as he got comfortable, there was a flash of red in his fireplace and a letter shot out onto the floor.

He stayed completely motionless for a moment, then got up to pick up the envelope, opening it where he stood and taking out the single sheet of parchment.

_Intruder detected at Malfoy Manor._

Under the small line of script was a space that glinted faintly in the light and Draco pressed the pad of his right thumb against the left side of it.

 _"Profero.."_ He said quietly as he slid his thumb along the parchment, then sucked in a sharp breath as a name appeared in the glinting space.

_HARRY JAMES POTTER_

Draco stayed quiet for a few moments, his head reeling and feeling short of breath. He sat down on the couch, turning the parchment over on his knees. He looked into the fire and stayed like that until his heart slowed and his thoughts became linear and easy again.

He then balled up the envelope and the parchment, tossing both into the fire, before he picked up the remote and started flicking through the channels.

He wasn't happy. But he was content. Contentment meant a lot to him, content was safe and easy and asked very little of him. He worked, he had a few friends, he went out and had a decent time.

Nothing from the Wizarding World was enough to destroy that contentment.

Not even Harry Potter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's first attempt to get into Malfoy Manor fails terribly. His second attempt goes FAR better.  
> But he isn't ready for and doesn't anticipate the wave of memories that come from being there again....  
> And he certainly doesn't anticipate the obvious evidence of things missing from the shelves and tables within the Manor.
> 
> Much further away Draco gets another letter through his fireplace. One he always thought he would be relieved to get, but now that it's in his hands, he just feels kind of sick...
> 
> \----------------------------------------

Harry had barely opened the front door of Malfoy Manor before he was leaving again. Pelting down the walkway as fast as he could possibly go while something massive, dark and ghostly chased him away from the house. 

Had there still been peacocks, he likely would have run one over.

After the gates had slammed shut with a decisively iron clang, he rested his hands on his legs, bent over to catch his breath. Once he'd managed to stop his heart racing he raised his head again, looking for any sign of the ghostly presence, and considering Malfoy Manor in general.

It was still protecting itself, he remembered Hermione saying that to him. That no one had been able to get inside- and now he could see why. But he WAS legal owner of Malfoy Manor now, so it should have renounced it's ties to the Malfoy's.

But he realized he was just assuming these things. That he didn't really know for sure... And he was fairly certain that much like Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place, a home like Malfoy Manor, so old and so thoroughly steeped in magic, could think for itself. And if he hadn't met whatever pre-requisites it had for allowing him inside, he could assume all he wanted to and it wouldn't make any difference at all.

He turned on the spot and apparated home, figuring there was nothing else he could do that evening. He thought about it most of the night, but it wasn't until he had woken the next morning that he had an actual concrete idea.

He needed the deed, he'd put that into his vault but he needed that. And he'd talk to the house this time. Treat it like it was a person who needed to have something explained to it. Which he knew, even to most wizards and witches, would sound strange. But it felt right.

So he returned to Gringotts to get the deed. It took some persuading and some patience (he HAD, after all, broken into the vaults and released a dragon from it's depths...) but he was eventually allowed to his vault to retrieve the deed, and then he went back.

Carefully he retraced his steps up the walk way, moving at a more relaxed and amiable pace than he had the night before, almost as though he thought the house would be lulled into a false sense of security if he approached without purpose. It didn't really do the trick, he could practically feel the place tensing the closer he got, raising it's hackles and ready to unleash whatever protective horrors were inside on him at any moment.

“I'm sorry to bother you.” He said to the house, stopping short of the grand stairs that lead to the door. “I'm not here to throw things at you, or gape at you or do anything nasty to you. But I'm your legal owner now.” 

Harry pulled the deed from his pocket, holding it up like he was giving the manor a chance to read it. Smiling a bit, he stepped forward and mounted the steps.

“I know you're still loyal to the Malfoys and I get that. Especially since I know Draco is still out there somewhere when he should be here living in you, right? That's kind of the reason I own you right now. I want to try and find him and bring him back. If I do find him, I'll hand the deed back over to him. Won't ask him for a knut, swear to Merlin.”

He waited, not moving to touch the door, not even taking another step closer to it, hoping that he would maybe get some sort of sign.

It took two minutes, give or take, before Harry felt the ground shudder under his feet. He heard and felt a few very heavy, deep mechanical-like clunks coming from underneath him, and something that reminded him of what draw bridges sounded like when they were raised or lowered. Then the front door to Malfoy Manor swung open of it's own accord, and the very air itself around him changed.

He felt quite warmly invited to step into the Manor, which he did readily. And while the outside looked like the house had been abandoned for several decades, the inside looked like it had maybe been left for a month. Everything felt empty, maybe slightly stale, and everything had just a bit of dust on it's surfaces.

It was like the house had held it's breath and stopped time on the inside. Looking at the table just inside the door, there were clear streaks in the thin layer of dust that looked just like someone's fingers had scooped up a set of keys or a wallet before stepping out the door.

He walked further in, going slowly and quietly because even though he knew that the Malfoys were not here, he almost expected to turn a corner and find Lucius there with one hand on his cane, ready to unsheathe his wand and point it directly at him.

He paused at the entry of a room not far inside, his breath catching in his chest and two voices flooded his mind in memory.

_”Well, Draco? Is it? Is it Harry Potter?”_

_“I can't... I can't be sure...” ___

__He shuddered out the breath that had caught, leaning against the doorframe as he swallowed. Merlin... That night._ _

__Lucius' voice was excited, even though he looked like a shadow of his former proud self. He was eager for Draco to confirm his identity, ready to hand him over to Voldemort and perhaps redeem the Malfoys in the eyes of their Dark Lord._ _

__But Draco..._ _

__Harry had never seen another human look the way Draco did. Thin and spent. Utterly terrified. Paler than pale, which was saying something about the blonde who was ice and snow on his best days._ _

__And yet, reluctant to identify him. Any of them._ _

__His face may have been warped by the spell Hermione had cast on him, but Ron and Hermione were perfectly fine. Maybe a little bloody and a little dirty, but there was nothing to hide their appearance._ _

__And yet Draco didn't want to name them._ _

__Harry rubbed the back of his neck, forcing himself to walk further as more memories of that night, the one time he was in Malfoy Manor, flooded back to him._ _

__The sound of Hermione screaming._ _

__Begging Griphook to lie._ _

__Shouting into the shard of mirror._ _

__Dobby..._ _

__The look on Draco's face as he fought against them with Bellatrix and how much it looked like he wanted to turn, to direct his hexes at his Aunt instead, to flee with them._ _

__How badly he wanted to grab Draco after he'd disarmed him and ask him if he wanted to come with them. To not even ask him, to just grab his arm and disapparate with him in tow._ _

__He exhaled sharply, smoothing both hands through his rumpled hair as he walked further, trying to shake the memories and refocus on what he was doing._ _

__The Manor was, he had to admit, everything that Draco had ever egotistically boasted about. It was beautiful, massive, and exceptionally well cared for. Everything was in perfect places, everything perfectly outfitted._ _

__Except..._ _

__Harry frowned as he stepped closer to a wall of shelves holding all manner of decorative bits and pieces. But here and there was a clear outline on the wooden surfaces that hadn't been touched by the sheen of dust._ _

__Someone had picked things up from these shelves, and as Harry moved around the room he found more clear spaces on small tables, on the mantle above the massive fireplace, on the surface of a long desk._ _

__He hurried from that room into another, and then another, and another, seeing these clear patches on surfaces in almost every room._ _

__Harry knew, based on his own experiences and from what Hermione had said, that no one had been able to get inside while the house protections were in place. No one but a Malfoy would have been allowed to step past the threshold._ _

__But had these clear spaces been made five years ago and the house just closed itself up tight since then? Somehow preventing age and dirt from accumulating?_ _

__Or had someone made them more recently?_ _

____

\-------------------------------------

Draco was once again sitting down in his flat after work.

He'd managed to have something to eat and watch a whole episode of something mindless on tv before his fireplace flared red and shot another envelope out at him.

He frowned, getting up to pluck the slightly smouldering envelope from the hearth before he sat down again, wondering if he should even bother opening it.

He had been getting these letters for the past five years. As the living heir and owner of Malfoy Manor, it directed security messages to him.

No matter where he was.

The first couple of years had been a nightmare. These envelopes and messages wormed under doors, popped out of drawers like toast, and repeatedly banged themselves against the windows of rooms he was inside when there was no fireplace to come through. He eventually moved specifically to a flat WITH a fireplace so that he could stop worrying about getting the messages while he was at work or out in public. There was only so much he could do to explain away that weirdness.

Though if he'd had a wand...

Draco shook his head rather forcibly, not wanting to entertain that thought for too long. He'd lost his wand, it was gone. That in itself had made his plans for a new life in the muggle world rather necessary. He would NEVER show his face to Ollivander again. Not ever. So a new wand, a good one anyway, was out of the question.

So he had no wand, which meant the fireplace was necessary and it served it's purpose well.

By the second half of the third year Draco no longer came home to multiple envelopes on his living room rug informing him of intruders.

Now they were extremely infrequent and until now had been completely untroublesome. There were never names on them he recognized as intruders. And what did it matter who went into the Manor- or tried to- anyways? He should just stop opening them...

But last night's had a name on it that he did recognize. And to get another the next evening was a little strange.

With a huff he tore the envelope open and unfolded a very thick parchment that said something entirely different than every other missive he'd received since leaving the Wizarding World.

_NOTICE OF ENTRY AT MALFOY MANOR_

_HARRY JAMES POTTER_

_ERUS DOMINUS PROPRIETATIS_

Draco made a strangled noise, startled by the words. He jumped to his feet, reading them again, and then again as if he expected them to change.

This was the final notice he'd ever get. This notice named Harry as Lord Proper of Malfoy Manor. Owner. Recognized and accepted by the house. 

He would be allowed inside. 

Was probably in there right now.

The house would hide NOTHING from him. There was so much about Malfoy Manor Draco didn't know. That he wasn't privy to the way his father was. Secret rooms, hiding places, god knows WHAT still in them left over from his father's reign. Most likely from his grandfather's reign as well.

Panic rose in Draco in a way he hadn't anticipated. He always thought that once he got that letter- and he knew someday he would- he would be relieved. That final tie that had him bound to the world he once knew would be dissolved, he would truly be free.

But that relief didn't come. Even as he stood there and tried to force himself to feel it, all he really felt was sick, worried and horribly upset.

Just as Harry had remembered the one night they'd been in Malfoy Manor together just an hour or so before, Draco remembered as well.

He remembered panicking when he saw Ron and Hermione dragged through the door. His heart had plummeted to his feet when he saw they didn't have the messy haired, green eyed, lightning scarred third to their group. But then he saw the other boy, looked at his swollen face and realized it was Harry.

And once again he felt hope rise, and then it was dashed back down to the ground again.

They where THERE. The three of them were IN Malfoy Manor. And if they were there, they weren't safe. They were going to be turned over to Voldemort, they would be killed and then Draco didn't know if his own life ended or begun when the final blows were made.

His father's voice was hot and eager in his ear, urging him and prodding him uncomfortably to look at Harry and confirm it was him.

He stuttered when he spoke. Uncertain in his uncertainty when he wouldn't name Harry for sure.

And the rest.. It blurred through his mind in a tumble, far less clear than it was in Harry's memory.

But he remembered that one singular moment. That one moment as Harry had disarmed him and grabbed the wands when their eyes met.

Harry had hesitated, his eyes seemed locked on Draco's as Draco looked back at him, utterly lost and not at all interested in trying to fight with him to get the wands back, even though his own was with them.

He thought Harry might say something.

He desperately wanted to say something, anything, to Harry.

And then their eyes broke, another rush of movement, and he didn't see him again until the battle at Hogwarts.

Draco stood for a very long time holding that piece of parchment, looking at the words, looking at Harry's name.

Then he scrunched it into a ball with the envelope and hurled it into the fire.

It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

He had an early meeting the next day and a new client to take for lunch and wow with his confidence and ability. Not to mention a fairly large order from Amazon that would be delivered later in the week.

Refocused, re-grounded and reaffirmed. He always looked forward, never back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With some help from Hermione Harry thinks he may have found a way to start tracing the things missing from Malfoy Manor.  
> And while he may find success in that, he starts to realize how many layers and threads and bits and pieces are part of this mystery...
> 
> Meanwhile, in the Muggle world, Draco loses a good luck charm. And can't help but wonder if Harry has anything to do with it...
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------

" _Scritornium_?" 

Harry tilted his head a bit as he spoke the word back to Hermione and tried to imitate the motion she made with her wands.

"Close. Tap twice on the spot first, then say the incantation and flick your wand up." She demonstrated again, then smiled when Harry mimicked her exactly. "Perfect. Then the next part is _Invenio loco_." She said the incantation then flicked her wand to the left, the right and then forward.

" _Invenio loco_." Harry said the words back and imitated the flicks, then smiled when Hermione nodded again. "Thanks so much."

"It's no problem. I'm more than a little concerned that things are missing from Malfoy Manor myself." Hermione said, sitting back down behind her desk. "No one should have been able to get in, and depending on what's been taken... It could be bad news."

Bothered by just how much seemed to have been taken from Malfoy Manor, Harry had decided to pay Hermione a visit at the Ministry the day after his successful trip inside. He didn't care that things were missing that could have been his. He cared that potentially someone had managed to get inside and take things. Or potentially Lucius and Narcissa had spent their last few days of freedom gathering up items from all over the place to hide or give to someone else. And knowing the two of them, what they gave away or hid could be some pretty nasty stuff.

The incantations Hermione had just taught him, would actually help him locate the missing items. He was to tap the spot and say the first incantation which would search for it within the house. If nothing happened he could say the second part and it would send the spell out to look away from the house. It wasn't immediate, and Hermione admitted she had never used the incantation because anything she was looking for (or, more often, Ron was looking for) always ended up being in the house, so she never had to use the second part.

"I'm guessing that it's all hidden somewhere in the house." Harry said, resting his hands on the back of one of the chairs across from Hermione's desk. Pointedly not sitting and demonstrating that he wasn't planning to stay. "The dust that is there makes me think no one cleaned for awhile when it was Voldemort's headquarters and then Lucius and Narcissa decided to bundle up all their most precious things and hide them against the idea that maybe one day they'd get out of Azkaban."

Hermione snorted in a very derisive way that made Harry laugh and then she laughed with him. "sorry, reflex." She said, rubbing her cheek. "They'll never get out of Azkaban. But if they were hiding things that must mean..." She hesitated here, her eyes flicking to Harry's face and searching it before she continued slowly. "Perhaps Draco really did die in the Battle."

"It looks that way." Harry said with a most impressive display of casual indifference. He didn't feel it, everything in him wanted to yell at her for even thinking it, but that would get him nowhere. "They certainly wouldn't have bothered if he was around and taking over the Manor, would they?"

"No, certainly not." Hermione shook her head and seemed to relax entirely when Harry spoke so easily about Draco. "Are you going?"

Harry had tapped the back of the chair with his knuckles and straightened up, he nodded at the question and looked slightly apologetic. "I want to go back and try the incantations. I'm worried that if the missing stuff isn't in the house and someone else has it they'll start trying to move things around with word circulating that I own the place now. We want to make sure if they're in someone else's possession we find out who it is."

"Oh good thinking, Harry!' Hermione said, giving him the same pleased look she'd been giving him since first year whenever he did something particularly clever. "Do tell me if you need anything else."

"Always." 

He smiled at his friend then left her office, retracing his steps through the Ministry to the apparation spots, going straight to the outer gates of Malfoy Manor. He was still leery about trying to apparate right into the Manor or on it's front step until it got the feel of him and knew he wasn't going to do anything bad. But as he walked through the gate and up to the front door, he felt nothing but a quiet sort of contentment that he had returned, and the front doors of the Manor opened for him to enter as he came up the stairs, not even waiting for him to reach for the handle.

"Thank you most kindly." He said to the house, patting the doorframe as though it was a pet. He didn't know if that was needed, but he felt it wouldn't hurt to treat the house with a little respect and care.

Deciding to start from the place he noticed first, but he guessed was the last thing grabbed if whoever had taken the things left the house with them, he turned right to the table inside the door. The dust there was marred with the slide of fingers that had picked something up. There wasn't a clear outline of what had been on the table, but there was a 'less dusty' area there. Like someone had set something down on the already dusty surface, and then picked it up again, leaving the finger swipes.

" _Scritornium!_ " Harry said the incantation after tapping the less dusty spot, then flicked his wand up. Hermione had told him that if the item was in the house he'd hear bells jingling where it was and he just had to follow the sound of them as they got louder or softer to find what he was missing.

But after several minutes passed with nothing where he was, and a walk around the main floor to see if he could hear the bells from somewhere else, he decided that what he was looking for wasn't in the house.

Returning to the front door again, he once again tapped the spot twice, then said the second incantation.

" _Invenio loco!_ " He flicked his wand to the left, to the right, then forward...

\------------------------------------------

Something banged in Draco's desk drawer. Loudly. Enough to make him nearly jump out of his skin with sudden fright.

"Merlin.." He muttered the word, a 'throwback' to his days in the Wizarding World that he just couldn't break. He couldn't seem to break a lot of the slang he had used growing up and had been extremely self conscious about it in the Muggle world. Thankfully, his friends and co-workers thought it was rather delightful and quirky so he never had to try and make up reasons and excuses for it.

As he reached for the drawer of his desk that the bang had come from, he hesitated. The whole front of it was shuddering, like something was trying, unsuccessfully, to push it open from the inside which meant that whatever the noise had been, it wasn't anything Muggle. 

With a jolt, he remembered that he'd tossed a Galleon in there when he'd moved into this office. A strange Galleon, not one you could spend because it wasn't actual currency. This was a relic from Dumbledore's Army, a coin that the members had used to communicate with each other. He'd known that members were using them all fifth year, but this one he didn't lay hands on until sixth. 

He'd been half out of his head during sixth year, grasping at anything he possibly could as a sign, a symbol, an omen of good fortune. Finding this Galleon, he'd immediately believed it would bring him good luck. He used the idea for himself in a way to try and carry out his horrible 'mission' in sixth year, and continued carrying it everywhere with him until after Voldemort was vanquished. After that it had sat in his bedroom on his dresser until he had started taking things from around the Manor. Deciding he wanted to take it with him- who knows when you might need some good luck, after all- he'd set it on the table in the entry way, then scooped it up as he went out the door for the last time.

He wondered now, as he carefully started to open the drawer, if something had happened to it. If something was happening in the Wizarding World that had activated it.  
But as soon as the drawer was open enough for a Galleon to escape, that's exactly what it did, soaring out of the drawer and through the (thankfully) open window.

Draco just sat there, his brow furrowed as he looked at the window, half expecting the coin to come back. But he realized how foolish that was rather quickly. 

The coin had never been his. He had never been in Dumbledore's Army, whatever secrets it had, they wouldn't reveal to him, and it had never been a lucky charm. Not really.

All the same, he felt an odd squirm in the pit of his stomach. Not just at the loss of the coin, which he acknowledged he was unhappy about, but something deeper. That in the past three days more had happened 'magically' than had happened in the past few years combined. 

All starting with Harry trying to gain access to Malfoy Manor.

Harry _fucking_ Potter. Who could never leave well enough alone....

\------------------------------------------

"OUCH!" Harry gasped, his hand flying to his forehead and holding there as pain radiated from a sharp point to one side.

He panicked for a moment, jumping up from his chair, his breath hard and fast as he thought his SCAR was burning again...

Then realized that the pain was coming from the opposite side of his forehead to his scar.

Idiot.

He rubbed the spot, now perplexed about what had caused the pain, then saw the galleon sitting on the floor in front of his chair. It had an odd red sort of bubble, and while he knew if Hermione was there she would be screeching at him to not touch it, he still leaned down to pick it up.

"Lost item returned!" An odd tinny voice chirped as he put his hand on the galleon. With a small pop the red bubble disappeared and the galleon bounced down onto his palm.

It took him a moment to realize what that all meant, but when he put it together he took in a sharp breath, then made a noise of triumph. This was the missing item from Malfoy Manor! This was what had been sitting on the table at the door of Malfoy Manor! It had taken a few hours for the galleon to find it's way to him, but having no idea where it was coming from he figured it made good time.

A galleon. He chuckled to himself, turning it over in his fingers, shaking his head. Of course a Malfoy wouldn't leave any bit of money sitting to collect dust when it could be pocketed. Even a single galleon.

He sat down in the chair, gloating over his success and eager to go back to the Manor the next day to try it on something else and maybe start locating more important things. But something was odd about the galleon he was holding. He turned it over in his hands, peering closer at it to try and figure out what was wrong.

It was two things, actually. The first being the 'serial number' that wasn't a serial number at all. It was a date. A date from quite a long time ago now, one that he wouldn't ever forget as it was the date of the Battle of Hogwarts.

The other thing he'd noticed was an odd worn spot on the edge of it. Like someone had rubbed it rather hard against stone to grate a bit of the roundness away from it. Two people in Dumbledore's Army had done that to make sure they could tell it apart from a real galleon at a glance. One was Neville, and he knew for a fact that Neville still had his coin.

The other was Zacharias Smith. 

Not someone that Harry had been friends with, or would ever be friends with. But he remembered shortly after the war while others had been interviewed about Dumbledore's Army, Zacharias had said he would have 'definitely turned up to fight' only he'd lost his coin and so didn't get the message that they were all meeting up. He went on to claim it had probably been stolen by a Death Eater and Harry had rolled his eyes so hard it hurt.

But now he couldn't help but wonder, considering the coin HAD been in Malfoy Manor.

With a sigh, Harry leaned back in his chair, trying to make sense of all this together. Unfortunately it was like he had a bunch of different pieces from several different puzzles, so nothing fit. 

It seemed that the further into this he went, the more mysteries he was turning up... And the biggest one, the only one he truly cared about, was still a blank slate.

"Where are you, Draco?" He murmured to the air around him, holding the coin up to look again. "Did you have this the whole time?"


End file.
